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Becca
Yeah, you just have to log into the toilet or else the lid's not going to open. I don't think I'm logged in anymore, so you're gonna have to log in. Why does this pack of socks have WI FI directions? You can cook here. You just have to make a login for my stove. What do you want your username and password to be? What app do I need to open this window? Oh, it wants your fingerprint. Can you give me your finger? If you want juice, just download the juice app and put in your order for my fridge. You don't have the app for my fridge. You've been here like three times. Can someone sign into the restaurant portal before we go? They need us to sign in 30 minutes in advance and put in all of our Social Security numbers or else they're gonna give the table away. I'm sorry. I'd give you a hug, but I don't think we're on the same W, so I don't think it's gonna let
Andrew Walsh
me TBTL Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday. Friday.
Luke Burbank
Gonna get down on Friday.
Andrew Walsh
Everybody's looking forward to the weekend.
Kristen
I value confidentiality and paradoxically, I don't care who knows it.
Luke Burbank
What is space like? What is that about? I don't actually think that that space is real. I think people just keep saying that it's real and saying that there stuff out there, but it's like we're never
Andrew Walsh
gonna know for real. You can't go there. Well, you have found my flabbergast button and guess what? You've pressed it. Hey, looky here. Why don't we eat us a few
Luke Burbank
thousand beers and you tell me what's
Andrew Walsh
buzzing in the big bad city?
Luke Burbank
Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. We are living in the midst of a podcast boom. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. How about a Fresca? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where I'm actually having a Fresca. Sometimes it's art imitating life imitating art imitating Fresca. And it is a wonderful Friday here, weather wise. April 10th. Oh, ma pa. It's just beautiful blue skies. And tell you what, you know what that means once my work is done. Today, I am back at it in the yard. Wanted to add a few comments regarding your mole situation. The grass is growing like a weed Right now. And the problem is the weeds are growing like weeds. The weeds. The dandelions are growing in the grass. I just mowed this a couple of days ago. But anyway, we've got much to do here on TBTL before it's time for all of that. It's episode 4703 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. A judge in Seattle has been barred from being a judge because of some shady paperwork that he made up related to a parking discount while he was judging.
Andrew Walsh
It's literally illegal.
Luke Burbank
And. Well, this may not break down along the convenient lines that you would expect it to regarding me and my friend Andrew Walsh. That's why you play the game, folks, because you never know who's gonna think what on this show. Speaking of Andrew Walsh, longest running co bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's joining me right now.
Andrew Walsh
I'll say. What's up, Doak?
Luke Burbank
How are you doing? And how was your sleep last night? Day two of raising Luke Jr. AKA Lucy the puppy.
Andrew Walsh
I slept well. I was sleep deprived when I talked to you yesterday, and I thought for sure I'd take a nap in the afternoon, but we had some workers over here and it just didn't really work out that way, which I'm really glad it didn't. I went to bed probably around. Probably late for you, but early for me. Around 11 o' clock last night. Slept all through the night while Genevieve was more on puppy duty. So I was a couple of things here. First of all, I'll tell you about the past in a moment, but first I'm think I need to talk about this future.
Luke Burbank
Future's a mystery.
Andrew Walsh
This is gonna be like. We're basically on day three.
Luke Burbank
Okay.
Andrew Walsh
It's the second day we've woken up. Our second full day with Lucy.
Luke Burbank
I've got it all written down somewhere.
Andrew Walsh
Exactly. I think today is the day that. And I'm so sorry for this, but I think today is the day that I introduce her to Mariners baseball, which they say, if you love someone, don't do that to them.
Luke Burbank
No, definitely.
Andrew Walsh
But the day we picked her up was a day game. So by the time she was in our car, I think the game was over. Or mostly over. It didn't really matter. Yesterday was a day off and now here it is, Friday. There's a normal start time evening baseball game here in Seattle. It's too early for Bark in the park night, certainly, but it could be. Let's see here. Nuzzle in the fuzzle. Night. No, that's not what we call our living room. In fact, I don't think you're allowed to say nuzzle on the fuzzle. I don't know if we are restricting.
Luke Burbank
Snoop Dogg is legally allowed to talk that way.
Andrew Walsh
But I'm thinking cause Genevieve might go out to pick up some food or something later this evening and maybe it'll be me and Lucy on the couch in the mlt.
Luke Burbank
It's time for her to meet her third parent, Angie Minting.
Andrew Walsh
That's right. By the way, it's been really great hearing Angie on actual broadcast news report from the dugout. But she's actually doing color commentary during the game. So I wasn't sure if because of the re. The realignment of everything. And of course I don't know if we talked about in the show, but I know a lot of listeners were sending us the article about her having some pretty serious health issues in the off season that she has come back from, which is incredible. But to hear her hanging in the booth, I really think she's so good and I think Lucy's gonna love her as well. And it's good to have strong woman role models. I feel like for Lucy. So absolutely today might be the day that we're doing that. But things are going actually Luke really well. And the. So the only downside so far is I'm starting to feel a little bit of guilt because Genevieve has been really, I think since I talked to you last. Genevieve has really been doing most of the hard work of training and stuff. But like the girl is going to the bathroom outside pretty much on the reg now. Like it's only day two. Like she was peeing on the carpet. I'm not saying that we're never going to have any more accidents, but we were really struggling with getting her to go number two outside.
Luke Burbank
Honestly, I would take that level of success for myself.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I know. And you know what I did?
Luke Burbank
We mostly outside, very little inside on the mat.
Andrew Walsh
We couldn't get her to go. She was finally getting it. Like, oh, I go out, I go number one outside. But she wasn't making the connection about number two. So you know what I did? I went number two in front of her outside, right in the driveway. Right in the driveway.
Luke Burbank
Very smart. With. With unbroken eye contact from your cross street neighbor.
Andrew Walsh
Exactly.
Luke Burbank
What I do is the sign guy.
Andrew Walsh
I. I took out my phone, I showed her Word. I showed her Wordle and I said, this is what we do. And then I started playing Wordle and I dropped trout. No of course I didn't do that. But we just kind of started to realize that you see a pattern. She usually has to go almost immediately after her meal times or whatever. So Genevieve was just, like, really riding herd on that. So I can't take any credit for that. Genevieve has been outside for all of those, let's call them, headlining events. But it is amazing. Like, I didn't know that she would so quickly pick up again. I'm not trying to say that there won't be setbacks or that she won't have accidents here and there or whatever, but it's just like, it really feels manageable because the thing that I couldn't get my head around was everybody saying, listen, negative reinforcement doesn't work. That old idea of rolling up a newspaper or whatever obviously is terrible. You just have to use positive reinforcement and celebrate them when they go outside. But it's like, when they haven't done it. It at all. How do you communicate to them? And I do believe they're. I believe in the psychology I was reading about, because some people say, well, you start them on these pads, you know, the urine pads or whatever that you put inside the house. And of course, that is all she's known so far.
Luke Burbank
That's all she'll ever know.
Andrew Walsh
That's all she'll ever know. But I've also was reading that says, like, but don't. Once you bring her to your new place and you've adopted her, don't get her used to that. Like, right now, she only knows that feel under her paws when she goes to the bathroom. You need to replace that feeling with the feeling of grass under her paws. And so it was like, how do you convince her that the place where she's outside and a little bit at first scared at the cars going by or whatever, this is the place that you do your business. And if you don't do it once, how do you celebrate it? How do you reinforce behavior that hasn't happened? And now that it's happened a couple of times and we can reinforce that, it just really feels like, okay, not again to say that I'm not hanging the mission accomplished sign on the aircraft carrier. But it feels like, okay, now we can. Now. Now we can work with this. Although I'm really excited about that.
Luke Burbank
When I poop in the right place, Becca does say, heck of a job, Brownie.
Andrew Walsh
I stand up. I look down at the toilet. I salute it. That is awful. I'm sorry. I'm the one who. I will say this. This is a development that I don't like so much about life with a puppy. And this is gonna be a little poop talk, dude. I got, like, seven different text chains going where Genevieve is bragging about how much our dog poops outside now. And it's kind of like, I didn't know that. That. You know what I mean? I know I'm the one brought it up on the show here, and it is part of the life, but it's like, how many text threads do I have to have that is getting into the ins and outs of. Of. Of a dog's process?
Luke Burbank
Well, that's a big part of the phase you're in right now.
Andrew Walsh
So if you're.
Luke Burbank
If this. If three years from now, it's still leading the discourse, I feel like that might. That might indicate something. But I do have. Just. Since we're on the subject, so we can just get this all. All out of our system, so to speak. Now, do you have a sense when. So when Carrie and I were living together and had Rudy, it was quite interesting to me because even though I was the one who was kind of maybe a little. In certain ways, a little more disorganized, maybe not as tidy as she was in certain ways, et cetera, I was the one who could not stand there being any dog poop in the yard. It was like just knowing that there was. And it might just be trauma from my childhood, which I've brought this up on the show lots of times, but growing up in the 80s, as I did, the menace of dog poop was just always around any corner. Like, so much of my childhood was like somebody stepped in dog poop. And I don't know if that did a number on me, but like. Like, when I would be. I'd go away on a work trip, and I'd come back and, like, Rudy would have been going to the bathroom in the yard for God knows how long, a week. And no one had really dealt with it. And we had a pretty big yard. It wasn't like it was underfoot, but just the idea of that being in the yard, it's like the telltale turd just beating and beating. And I have to go out. And so I guess my question to you is, do you feel like the picking up? And I'll mention one other thing. When Becca and I are walking Gigi or out doing things with Gigi, which is actually her mom's dog, but who she ends up taking care of. A lot of the time, I am on dog poop duty because she is very Grossed out by the process of picking it up with a little baggie. How do you think the division of labor is going to go in your home environment of who is going to be on the case with the dog poop in the yard?
Andrew Walsh
Well, I'll say right now, which I think I'm restating, Genevieve has totally been on it for. We'll call them movements for the first three movements, like Brahms Lucy's third movement. Show title, but. So Genevieve has been doing it. But I'm definitely not going to shy away from it. In fact, I want to, you know me, like, I want to really make sure that I'm not just relying on Genevieve too much to do the heavy lifting of things. But I definitely think that we are not going to be a like, oh, we're going to let it build up a little bit and then have the world's worst Easter egg hunt once a week or something like that. That is not. We just take the bags out as if, like, right now we're not leaving our yard because she can't leave the yard yet. But we're treating it like we're going on a walk. And so she's always on the leash out there. We have the bags and Genevieve picks them up. Now, this is a small detail. I don't know if it's.
Luke Burbank
That's what I wanted to lock in on, is that we always have a bag and we always pick up the poop.
Andrew Walsh
We always pick up the poop and then we throw it away right away. Yep.
Luke Burbank
Excellent. I think that's a great strategy for the family.
Andrew Walsh
And she's kind of the place where it kind of just worked out this way. But the place that she's going is kind of near the garbage cans anyway, so it all kind of just works out. But this is kind of an interesting, I think, sort of idea. So Genevieve's brother, who has a dog, and a incredibly well behaved dog. I told you guys, it was like a magic trick. It was like close magic. The first time that he and Swayze, that's the dog's name, came to visit us in our old apartment.
Luke Burbank
I assume named for the band Swayze?
Andrew Walsh
I believe so. I don't know that band, but I think so. I had a joke that would have been good, but I can't think of the band's name, and that's a critical part of the joke. What was the band? I don't know why I think they're so funny. What was the band that sounded like exactly like Led Zeppelin but pretended like they'd never heard Led Zeppelin before.
Luke Burbank
Oh, they are called golden something. No, hold on, listeners. Everybody.
Andrew Walsh
Why did I do this?
Luke Burbank
Put your phone away. They were playing. This is going to help us get there. We were in Austin, I think. Were we in Austin together or was I there for.
Andrew Walsh
Wait, wait.
Luke Burbank
And they were playing like stubs. It's not Fleetwood Mac, but it's got Fleet.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, you're right. Greta Van Fleet. Greta and not Fleet Foxes. Greta Van Fleet. I was ready to look it up, by the way. Good job. I don't even know why I thought that would be a funnier, like a funny band to say. I don't know. I don't know what I did to the show there. Luke, I owe you an apology. I owe Lucy an apology. I owe the listeners an apology.
Luke Burbank
It's kind of my fault for. I was trying to make a joke about, like, if you tell me that a dog is named Swayze, I kind of assume it's for Patrick Swayze. Although that's also kind of an older generational thing. Like, I know that I'm older than Veeves brother. But then there is a band called Schwayzy, which was this very. They had a song called Buzzin that was like a very kind of like beachy 2008 kind of like vibey song that even as you were here, even as one was hearing it, one knew that this, the center, could not hold on this song on this, on this band. Although they do appear to be touring. So that's really on me for trying to make a Schwayze Swayze joke. And I apologize to you and the listeners and to the dog Swayze.
Andrew Walsh
And I'm gonna do something that's gonn to call for another apology later. But I wanted to look up Greta Van Fleet just see what they're doing now. And I. Oh, I'm sorry.
Luke Burbank
Greta Van Susteran is the band you were thinking of.
Andrew Walsh
I'm not going to ask you to explain that joke to me, but I will acknowledge that I don't get it. I just need a recording of that. Yeah, just play that. You.
Luke Burbank
You have the truck laughing but not understanding.
Andrew Walsh
You have noted the beeping up, the backing up beep of a truck and that are two things. We knit on standby at all times. I just want to see what's going on with Greta Van Fleet. These. And so I typed them up and I hit news search and I got a headline that says, Greta Van Fleet's Jake Kizka announces album and tour with his new band Mirador. And I was like, oh, trouble in paradise, Greta.
Luke Burbank
Greta Van Slowing down.
Andrew Walsh
Yes, now, that's his new band. Here's the very uninteresting thing that I want to bring up about this. This has happened to me now two times in two days in conversation with you, in conversation with Luke Burbank. And I think both of them happened on the show. One of them might have been off air, but when I typed in Greta Van Fleet into Google News, the first result was a headline I just gave you, but it's via IMDb and when you click on it, it only gives you the first like three paragraphs. And then it says, click here to read the rest of the article on Consequence Music, which is apparently like a music website.
Luke Burbank
Is that like a build out of Consequence of Sound?
Andrew Walsh
I'm not sure about that. But the other, the other time this came up was you and I. That's right, it was off air. We were talking about some old Matt Walsh project and I looked it up, and more of a Eugene Merman thing, it doesn't matter. I looked it up and it did this exact same thing yesterday. It took me to the headline via IMDb, gave me the first few paragraphs, and then I had to click to get to the actual source. In that case was Vulture. You know, like, that's the New York Magazine one, right? So IMDb is doing something now. I mean, this has to have to do with the initiatification of everything, right? To use that term, without a doubt.
Luke Burbank
I mean, you know, grabbing.
Andrew Walsh
They're trying to grab traffic and like, I don't know how traffic is being monetized, I guess, through shitty ads. But, like, it's so weird.
Luke Burbank
I am unsurprised. I think I've had this happening to me too, and I couldn't figure out why. And I also wasn't like. I wasn't sort. I wasn't noting it like, sort of very carefully, but I have a generalized feeling of having to like, sort of swipe, you know, basically like karate chop away IMDb more than I would want to, considering I'm not looking up movies. I mean, the thing I've said about the. The IMDb situation is my theory is that they have moved to some kind of business model where they're trying to get everyone to sign up for IMDb Pro. And so they're making like, regular IMDb not very useful anymore, so that they think that will drive more people to sign up for some kind of paid account. So I really actually just try to avoid IMDb generally. But I would Be unsurprised to hear that they've signed some. And this is where the limits of my understanding of how the Internet work are pretty apparent. But I feel like they must assign something with. I don't know if it's Google or whoever it is to start showing up higher in the search results, even for things like that are not IMDb. Like, I'm not going to IMDb for my Swayze or my Greta Van Fleet Content Mirror.
Andrew Walsh
This is more of a Mirador story.
Luke Burbank
This is no way should I be trying to gatekeep my Mirador information. By the way, there was a great piece in the Times yesterday about the rise of the term gatekeeping.
Andrew Walsh
What if instead of sounding like Led Zeppelin, Mirador sounded exactly like the Doors and they're just like Jim who? Yes, Robbie who? All right, here's what I was going to say about Swayze. Schwase, IMDb controlling the flow of information on the Internet these days, we are getting a lot of dog advice from a lot of different sectors. And some of it is coming from Zachary, Genevieve's brother, who again, like, I'm here for that advice. He has one of the most well behaved, well balanced dogs I've literally ever met in my life. And I've met some good dogs, Luke. But anyway, he sort of mentioned, he said, you know, one thing you might want to do as you're kind of getting her used to going outside, is put down some wood chips. He said, I don't think I know where I first heard this, but it worked for me. There's something about the smell of wood chips that might relax the dog a little bit. But then once they sort of make that association, they'll like, go out, they'll smell the wood chips and they'll know that that's what they're there to do. But then he said, in a sort of a side bonus of that also is it's easier to clean it up on wood chips. And this is one thing that I have not experienced yet that Genevieve keeps on bringing up in graphic detail to the point where I said, genevieve, stop. I'm making food now. But she keeps on talking about how gross it is to pick up the dog poop from the grass. She evoked that shag carpeting joke that you like to evoke from time to time. Like, and she.
Luke Burbank
Pretty good spoof.
Andrew Walsh
And I. And she. So apparently, if you can kind of get them to get to go on like a little, like kind of maybe low pile of wood chips, which we can kind of set up in the Similar place, which is kind of by the garbage bins. And again, yes. I mean, I think I made this very clear. We will. We treat it like. She goes. We pick it up right away. Whether we're on a walk outside or in our yard, we're going to treat it the same way. So nothing's going to be sitting out but a pile of wood chips that are maybe easier to like, kind of pick underneath the mesh up off of. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And now we're. Now we're getting into the. As my brother would say back in the day. Now we're getting down to it.
Andrew Walsh
Is that Sammy or.
Luke Burbank
That was Sammy, but you had to like it. Also, some of it has to do with the consistency of the. And there is. And I will. Here's the one thing I will occasionally allow for, and I love that I'm allowing for this. This is not my home or my dog. It is my namesake and I'm sticking to that. But there is the occasional case where, say it's very cold outside and let's say your dog is having maybe a little. Little stomach discomfort. Let's say that the results of the. Of the trip outside are not, as George Brett would say, a perfect double tapered shit.
Andrew Walsh
We're not contained.
Luke Burbank
Not. There is a certain logic to allowing it to freeze and harden overnight because then it is a lot easier to deal with. I would just throw. I mean, we're past that season. That's not gonna happen for a long time.
Andrew Walsh
Would I put a little flag you. When they're doing some sort of like underground work, they'll put those little.
Luke Burbank
Yes.
Andrew Walsh
Orange flags to say where the gas line is or something.
Luke Burbank
I'm sure they. Yes, definitely start with get. You know me, I'm all about acquiring something for the lifestyle and definitely get you some flags. But now I would not recommend doing that in the. In the. In the summer months, even though the same effect actually happens, which is to say it can also be baked into a. A sort of a cow piece, if you will. And then it is also easier to deal with. But the problem then is you have the smell situation, which is very unpleasant in the summertime and nobody wants that. Whereas in the winter, in the walking situation.
Andrew Walsh
Cow turd on a hot day. And also we live in a rainy area, not a frozen tundra.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, you're right. In fact. Yeah. In fact, I think we just had the warmest winter and it may never freeze again in this part of the world.
Andrew Walsh
And then the rain is going to take.
Luke Burbank
I'd just say pick up the Dog poop when it happens, which sounds like your plan anyway.
Andrew Walsh
And also, a lot of this does have to do with diet. And so far, like, this is what they said when we picked her up. And it's what all the advice says is we've been feeding her chili. Like, you have to be consistent. Like, she has a bowl of chili three times a day. Pretty spicy. That's what she grew up with. And you don't want to be messing around with that. Exactly. I'm assuming that change things up, that'll lead to good gut health. Every now and then, I give her one of those Cleveland kitchen gut health pickles that I taste the air for.
Luke Burbank
You exactly. No, I mean, sounds like it sounds like it's all working out.
Andrew Walsh
It's a closed system over here. It's great.
Luke Burbank
We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.
Andrew Walsh
On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set now. Ready?
Luke Burbank
Ready.
Andrew Walsh
Go, everybody.
Luke Burbank
Razzle dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These kind, generous folks are donating dough to tbtl. And that pays for everything. Pays our salaries. It helps us, you know, put together the tbtl a thon, which, you know, we are. We're working on right now. People think that, you know, we just get together and chop it up and jawbone for an hour and a half a day, but no, we're having high level, important meetings.
Andrew Walsh
That's right.
Luke Burbank
About this year's thon left and right. And I think it's going to be really fun, actually. I'm getting very excited about it.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
You know, watch this space for that. But in the meantime, we want to thank Ann Bost, who's in Newton, Massachusetts. Ann says happy to support another dazzling year with the business boys and the TBTL community. It's been another year of finding joy in the mundane, in creating community through shared drops and Seattle wins. I was secretly pulling for them, much to the disappointment of my family. I have this. And forgive me, Andrew, because. And forgive me, Anne. I have a vague memory of Ann maybe being Seattle based at one point. That's somewhere in the back of my brain. I could be wrong about that. And this is a dangerous game, Dano, When I start trying to call out specifics about the lives of the donors,
Andrew Walsh
but, I mean, I'm happy to do some pretty invisible, evasive research and stalking if you want me to. Is that. Do you want me to do that?
Luke Burbank
Well, I guess we just have to get to an answer on this, you know? And so, yeah, if you could. Ann says, I know we're all trying to make sense of what's going on in the world in our different ways. Having friendos around the country who share hopes and disappointments is helpful to me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Okay, for my quick pitch, I'd like to shout out one of my favorite local Boston charities, the One by One project. They partner with local nonprofits to provide support that falls outside of the nonprofit's mission. Here's an example of how they help. A mom who brings her child to a nonprofit, daycare, has car trouble and can't pay for the car to be fixed. The nonprofit notices when the child doesn't come to daycare, so they reach out and find out what's going on. That's incredible. That is taking this sort of idea of wraparound services, which is sometimes how this kind of stuff is referred to, to a totally new level. I mean, that's. That's a really, really good idea because for the reasons that Anne just has pointed out in that, like, it's. I always say on the show, it's very, very expensive to be poor. And there are. When. When you're economically on the margins, any one thing can just throw off whatever bit of stasis you have in your life, whether it's car trouble, childcare, healthcare, you name it. So this is a really, really good idea as a daycare. They can't do anything to help fix the car, but they can make a request of the One by One project to pay for the repairs, which they do. Then the mom's back on the road and the kiddo's back in daycare. And an expense that could have derailed this family. I believe I used the term derailed, Ann. And here you are copying me in the message that you wrote before today.
Andrew Walsh
Ann, can we talk about Copy Echo here? I mean, I don't know if this is to talk about lead writing 101, but this is.
Luke Burbank
And I spell that L, E, D E, Andrew. Because it matters.
Andrew Walsh
Yes, you do.
Luke Burbank
And says the mom's back on the road, the kid is back in daycare, and the expense that could have derailed the family and so many others who live paycheck to paycheck is covered in a world that can feel very disjointed and conflicted, knowing that there are people and organizations looking for ways to be a backstop and provide support to those who need it exactly when they need it gives me hope. Plus, the couple who started it have totally bootstrapped it, which gives a lot of TBTL vibes. Wow. That's incredible. Good for these folks too. If you'd like to learn more and or donate, visit the one by one project.org the one byone and one is spelled out O N E B Y o n e project.org Andrew I'm 49 years young and it took everything in my power to not say www.cause it's.
Andrew Walsh
It's in there.
Luke Burbank
Here's the thing. I want to give the right information. I want to make sure that when folks like Ann are alerting us to a cool organization like this that I'm really being very specific with the web URL so people can find it. But I don't think we need the www. But I was so close to reading that.
Andrew Walsh
Here's what I'm going to do go to. All right. We haven't even gotten to top story. We have a lot to say about it and I told I'm on a bit of a time yeah myself. Yeah. So it's unfair to do this but there is something that lives in my head from my time in college. You can tell I'm looking around for something here that I might not have but do you remember the other day I told you that I got a jury summons? I had to go. I know I had to go into the portal and it's about to. Yeah. So anyway, I did go problem around. I did go into the portal as they recommended and. And you know, kind of told them here I am ready to serve or whatever. But my point is they contact you via the usps via the postal service. New thing in my life, Luke. I'm trying not to say mail anymore. Vivs and I had a long conversation about it and after these messages this week, I can't say that word male for some reason it sounds funny coming out of my mouth. So I'm trying to say post more. I got it in the post. Huh.
Luke Burbank
I like it. So kind of old school.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. All of that is to say they contacted. They contacted me via the post on a post card and they said go to this portal to fill out your thing. And it was like. King county courts.gov but then it was like service-something/ and it just kept going. I mean obviously I just googled it and got there anyway. But what lived in my head was a commercial that I made. It was a fake commercial that I made for my radio broadcasting class way back in I don't 1998 or something like that when I Was actually going school for radio production, but can't stay golden flash. That's right. Still sounds like a sex crime. But the Internet was relatively new there. You know, you didn't have, like, go to our website in all commercials. That was just starting to kind of pop up in advertising and people didn't know how to do it. And I remember, I think the. Do you remember Calphalon pans? I think our assignment was maybe to do a Calphalon pan commercial or something like that. And at the end of my commercial, I put in the URL, and it might have had, like, it was a little bit long. If you were to hear that on the radio today, you'd be like, that's a very long URL to include in your copy for a radio ad. Right? But at the time, it was the proper URL, and it was like maybe one slash or two slashes. And my stupid professor, who was like a radio guy from way back in the day, but I always got the impression that this guy loved being a know it all about radio, but hadn't worked in radio in so long, whereas I was actually working in a. A going concern radio station at the time in a newsroom. Now I was bulky racing carts and not doing any kind of super heavy lifting, but I was taking daily news feeds from Columbus and the State House News Bureau and everything. And I was just kind of like, you old man, you love to kind of swing your leash around in here and act like we're all these little pups. I've really got puppies on the mud.
Luke Burbank
You like to spread your wood chips.
Andrew Walsh
But you know what I mean? Did you ever have professors like that who really acted like, oh, first of all, there was this thing about you want to get into radio. My first advice for you is don't. There was like always that attitude back in the day, like, oh, you think you're going to be a. You think you're going to be spinning rock and roll. If you, if you hate country, your first job is going to be sorting country records. Or there's like all this, like, kind of gatekeeping, as you like to say. And just kind of like, I've been there and I knew it. And I was like, you're an old man. You don't even know what Internet is. And the technology you used was so far away from what I'm actually doing in the newsroom at WKSU right now. And I was very irritated by that. But now whenever I hear a long URL, I think about that guy.
Luke Burbank
Well, the Thing is, something like that, like radio is. It's a kind of a unique example because, for instance, if somebody is. Here's what I'm going to say. And we have people who are. Are, you know, in academics and people who are professors that listen to the show. And I'm not saying this is a blanket statement about being a professor, because. But it is the case that in, like, something like radio, if somebody had a thriving radio career, the likelihood is they wouldn't be teaching radio. They'd be. They'd be making radio. They'd be, you know, they'd be engaged in that process. And I think that there was a sort of a pipeline of people for, like, broadcast journalism tracks who had maybe just not flown as high in the world of broadcast journalism as they'd expected or as they'd hoped, but they were able to teach broadcast journalism. And particularly radio is particularly one of those things where. Yeah, I don't see. I didn't really do any radio classes at the U Dub because they didn't have. They actually didn't have a broadcast journalism program. They had. Whatever, it doesn't matter. WSU had the best. Had a really good place.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, it's what I hear.
Luke Burbank
Didn't Durs graduate from that program?
Andrew Walsh
He did. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
The Murrow School. That's a very, very good school over there. Uw, we did not have that. But I know what you mean. This kind of like this guy that, like, to some degree, because you're young, you're like 19 or 20 or whatever, you got to kind of take what he says seriously. But with the benefit of hindsight, if you were to look back a. First of all, he's probably. I'm. When you say old, do you think he was at that time, older than you are now?
Andrew Walsh
That's a good point. I do think he was probably in his late 50s, but I could be totally wrong. You're right. He could have been 20, 27.
Luke Burbank
Everybody. I thought everybody was so old.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Actually, this is a really. This is a really good question. I should actually ask some of my friends who went through that course with me.
Luke Burbank
Well, Ann wraps things up by saying thanks for all you do and for keeping the TBTL light shining bright. And thank you for supporting tbtl. Thanks for telling us about the One by One project, and thank you for being an undercover Seahawks fan. I think it really helped during the super bowl, particularly with you being in Massachusetts. So thank you for that. Maestro, on your mark. On your mark.
Andrew Walsh
Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, Go.
Luke Burbank
Look who it Is it's Camion Guyer and Camion with the very helpful explainer of how we say Camion's name. Because I feel like in years past, I've much like the heart of the Mariners order. I've been swinging and missing Andrew. I've not been able to catch up to the fastball that is Camion's name.
Andrew Walsh
Camion the first name or Gyre the last name?
Luke Burbank
The first name. Because I think I thought that one year I thought we were missing an R. I thought we were looking at a Cameron where there had been an
Andrew Walsh
R. Oh, I don't remember.
Luke Burbank
I was unfamiliar with the name.
Andrew Walsh
The gyre is helpful too, though. I mean, I think that is probably where you'd land on this. But it says guy or rhymed with Meyer and that's pretty helpful. And it says Camion doesn't have a handy rhyme. Maybe Tammy Un.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, that actually is a helpful.
Andrew Walsh
Exactly. Or I like this. You can call me Cammy as my real life friendos do. I like to think that I'm a real life friend of Cammy.
Luke Burbank
You have paid us more than you have paid your real life friendos over the years.
Andrew Walsh
That's a good point. I hope.
Luke Burbank
We are. We are. We're friends in real life. And honestly, we rely on you more than your actual friends do. So let's go with the familiar Cammy.
Andrew Walsh
Let's.
Luke Burbank
Cammy Usted. Thank you. I wanted to make that joke, but I know usted is the formal, but I didn't know really anything past that, and so I just kind of clammed up. Cammie is in Belfair, Washington. Beautiful Belfair, Washington. Not far from where my sister Hanian lives in Shelton. It's all kind of in the same area because you guys make me laugh out loud every once in a while. All right, Cammie, we'll take it. Hey, you know what? Once in a while, we'll take it.
Andrew Walsh
If I could get Genevieve to say that I'd be happy.
Luke Burbank
And you make me smile frequently. That gets two dings. And you often make me ache with tenderness when you bare your souls to us. That's why I want to support what you do and continue to grow old with you. I thank you. That's from Cami in Belfer. Aw. Grow old with us. That's, you know, that's you and I were having. We don't need to rehash all of it, but you and I were having. You and I did about, I don't know what, 60% of a show before
Andrew Walsh
we started recording it, like 45 minutes. Yeah. And by the way, we cover all of the. How do you watch baseball games now in the given media environment that I almost teed up on the show earlier this week? And I told the listeners, no, we won't go there because I respect you too much. And we did have that conversation off air today. And, Lucas, still you using the MLB
Luke Burbank
app, We foamed that off before the show, but then we got into aging and just thinking about life and things that Camion is kind of. Excuse me, Cammy is kind of referring to here. And it's funny because, yeah, we've been doing this thing now for coming up on 20 years. And I mean, I don't have any plans to stop, certainly as long as the listeners want us to do it, and as long as we're able to do this as our job job, we're here for it. But I do kind of wonder about, like, there will be an end to this thing. And also, I make. We make a lot of jokes at our own expense about how we're getting older and we're not relevant and we don't, you know, we don't know what the new cool terminology is or whatever. But this idea that maybe that's not. That's a feature, not a bug. The idea that we are growing old with the listeners.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
In kind of a. In a kind of a. Maybe sort of a beautiful way, in a country time lemonade ad kind of way. We're all just kind of hanging out with each other for years and years and years. That's a really sweet way to think about this. Instead of me being like, the March of time is unrelenting and I'm becoming less relevant by the day, which is true. It's more like, hey, Cammie enjoys hanging with us, and we're all on this journey on this big blue marble, and we're all getting a little bit older and we're doing it together. And there's something very sweet about that.
Andrew Walsh
I like the idea of us being on. On the front porch. You know, I used to.
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
Andrew Walsh
Produce a show called the Front Porch Luke. But we could be on the front porch with our rocking chairs and. What is it? Is it Seagrams? What? What was it? The two guys selling seagrams?
Luke Burbank
That was Bartles and James.
Andrew Walsh
Bartles and James. You and I could be like the Bartles and James of podcasting.
Luke Burbank
I will have to introduce you thusly. He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships, capturing their grace and power every time you step
Andrew Walsh
Onto the front porch.
Luke Burbank
I gotta fire that up for you.
Andrew Walsh
That's from the front porch.
Luke Burbank
Cammie, thank you so much for supporting tbtl. We do very much appreciate you.
Andrew Walsh
Hello and welcome to Top Story.
Luke Burbank
We've been covering judges in the news a lot lately, Andrew, if you think about it. Well, a judge in the news, that guy that was being a jerk in Texas. But two judges in two weeks still seems like a lot of judges in the news for us. This is a headline from the Seattle Times. I guess it was yesterday, but it was new to me this morning. And it was a piece by Lauren Girgis writing in the Times. The headline is, washington Supreme Court removes judge for faking document to get Cheap
Andrew Walsh
parking, Not even free parking. Which is an interesting detail of the story, by the way.
Luke Burbank
Totally. So there's an attorney who works as a judge pro tem, which is temporary judge in King County District Court. This was back in 2023. His name's David Rusna. And he. It sounds like he basically was annoyed and. Or didn't want to pay the full parking fee, which was $30 when he would be working at the, the, The King. I think it's the.
Andrew Walsh
Let's see, this is the King County Court.
Luke Burbank
This is. Okay, we're talking about the King County Court. No, I think you're right, though. He had, he had worked as a judge pro tem in the Seattle Municipal Court, the Snohomish County District Court, and the Superior Court in King County. I think this was the King County Courthouse, maybe. Yeah, it is. Basically it was 30 bucks to park there. If you're just like, I guess, a normal person, but if you were employed with the King County District Court, you would get a. Wait for it. $10 off your parking. I believe it would be $20.
Andrew Walsh
No, that would be. I think it was $30 parking.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, normally.
Andrew Walsh
But with the. Were an employee. Specifically.
Luke Burbank
$10, right.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I thought it would be only $10. Oh, I see. Okay.
Luke Burbank
That's kind of a big. Let me, let me, Let me double check. Okay, I've got it here. A $10 reduction from the usual $30 rate. And the only reason. Okay, I'm not trying. Yeah. Because it's not, it's not like free parking.
Andrew Walsh
No, you. It's not even ten dollar parking. I thought it was $10 parking versus $30 parking. It's 20 versus 30.
Luke Burbank
Still $20.
Andrew Walsh
A lot of money.
Luke Burbank
Yes. I don't know what a judge pro tem makes, but I, I assume it's not nothing. But I do also assume that, you know, a 30 or even $20 a day right off the top is. Is going to. It's going to cut into whatever it is you're making. So it sounds like. I mean, what this really sounds like to me, Andrew, is like a almost roadrunner, Wiley Coyote or Meal is more like, remember the. The. The one where's the sheepdog and the coyote, where they would. They each show up for work and then they would just battle all day and then. Then the, the five o' clock whistle would blow and then they just basically shake hands and go back home. It sounds like there was some kind of issue between David Rusna and a parking attendant.
Andrew Walsh
Well, you know what it really reminds me of, and I know this will be a little bit lost on you because I don't think you watch this series, but it is so reminiscent to me. Yeah. Oh, you did see. Oh, you watched the beginning of that.
Luke Burbank
I forgot enough into it that I remember the parking booth that was.
Andrew Walsh
And that's kind of how the series begins. And Guy Mike, who's the toll booth operator, ends up playing a huge part. And of course, it was a prequel, so you already would know this, but the Guy Mike who runs the toll booth is a huge character in the Breaking Bad slash Better Call Saul verse. And so, yeah, like that. And it's literally at a courthouse and it's a lawyer fighting with a toll booth. I remember it's Saul leaving the courthouse every day, getting into these confrontations because he didn't get the proper stamp or didn't want to pay or whatever.
Luke Burbank
It was so similar.
Andrew Walsh
But in this case, like, like, and I'm sorry to jump in, but it's not like I found the story very interesting because I read the headline, oh, man, this guy wanted cheaper parking, so he forged some documents. But, like, no, there were other steps. There were other confrontations with the person who was collecting. I'm going to keep on calling it a toll, which is wrong. But, like, who was collecting the money before you could get out of the garage? Like, he'd already. The judge had already tried to, like, kind of finagle this situation and failed. The person was holding firm. So that's when he created this document. I think that's a really interesting wrinkle of this story because when he whipped this thing out, finally, suspicions must have already been raised.
Luke Burbank
Exactly. The incident pertained to an ongoing dispute. Again, reading from the Times here, concerning a discount parking rate available to King county employees, which allowed a $10 reduction from the usual $30 a day County IDs were required to get the discount. Count and pro tem judges did not receive a badge. Rusna had shown the attendant attendant his name, placard and judicial robes in an attempt to get the discount. Previously.
Andrew Walsh
I love, look at me, I'm a judge. I got the wig.
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Could, like, would a. Would a person who didn't deserve $10 off their parking have these robes served? He showed him the robes, which the attendant did not accept.
Andrew Walsh
And now it's a thing. Right?
Luke Burbank
Now it's a thing. Ruzna testified the exchanges were friendly and cordial. The fraudulent document that Ruzna eventually shows up with stated that he was employed by the King County District Court. And it bore a court seal and it was stamped with the signature of the judge for whom Ruzmna was serving as pro tem. In other words, the judge that Ruzma was filling in for. Only judges and clerks or administrative staff are allowed to use the court seal. So here is obviously what happened. He was fuming. He'd showed him the gavel, he'd shown him his nameplate. He had shown him the robes, he'd shown him the wig. He'd done everything he could. And so he's sitting there at his desk filling in, maybe even covering, I don't know, traffic disputes, people driving in the bus only lane, even though they have a great story. Who knows? And he's like, types up this letter ostensibly from this other judge saying David Rusna is employed with the court and is allowed to get the discount. He stamps it with the stamp of Judge Rebecca C. Robertson, who he's filling in for. And then this other, actually very handsome, kind of. What would you call that color of blue? Indigo blue? Royal pink? Royal blue. King County District Court Station stamp stamped February 16, 2023. And then he brings it to the parking attendant. Now, I don't know if this is addressed in the story, Andrew. I'm not sure if even this got him the discount. I don't know if the parking attendant ever relented on the $10.
Andrew Walsh
That's a really good. Because it's been. This is not written how he kind of got caught here, but I guess my assumption is like, he's gone through. He said, oh, come on, look, I got my robes. What was the other thing that he showed his gavel or something? Something.
Luke Burbank
No, he showed his name plate.
Andrew Walsh
His name, I believe, like that sits on his desk.
Luke Burbank
It says like, judge Ruse.
Andrew Walsh
Look, I'm literally the person's like, no, I'm sorry, that just, you know, I have to follow the rules or whatever. I'm, I'm play acting here. I'm role playing. And then so maybe the next day or at some point later, he comes through and he's like, look, I got it. And it's, and it's just literally a piece of tight. You know, it's just typewritten. It says, david Rusma is employed with the King County District Court as judge pro tem. It's the type of thing that a kid might.
Luke Burbank
Right.
Andrew Walsh
That says, please excuse Andy Walsh from his math class today. He's not feeling well. And then it has a really bad imitation of my mom's signature on it, basically. Although this guy got the stamps, so it's not a really bad imitation.
Luke Burbank
But like, again, it, you know, the article doesn't even indicate if, I mean, I guess.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. So maybe he hands it over and says, look, I have it. And the person says, I don't believe you. I believe that the person he's confronting at the booth. I'm picturing a booth.
Luke Burbank
Yes.
Andrew Walsh
They might have just said, no, jig is up. And judge.
Luke Burbank
And maybe taken a picture of it or something. Maybe somehow, like I, I have a feeling in all of this he never got past that parking gate for the price of $20, which is wild to think about. So this got, this was. This was raised with whomever. In other words, this, this fake document was passed on to whoever the powers were.
Andrew Walsh
Be.
Luke Burbank
Powers that be were. And I think what's been happening is, I mean, this went to the Washington State Supreme Court. But the way that the Supreme Court works is it doesn't start there. So this must have worked its way up through the courts. The question as to if he should be removed from. Because I guess the initial. I'm sure that the initial, if you will, ruling or decision around this was you cannot use another judge's official stamp to try to get a deal on parking like that is considered. That judge's stamp is a very sacred. Sacred, you know, is a very sacred thing that, that conveys the, the full, I guess, power and weight of that position. And you can't be, I mean, that's the same. That's. You're forging a document and essentially forging
Andrew Walsh
a document with a judge's name. I understand that that is a pretty serious offense.
Luke Burbank
Now here's what Rusmana said in a statement. He said that this was basically, he argued that the incident was an ill advised joke. And, and this is where I don't
Andrew Walsh
believe that part, by the way.
Luke Burbank
Oh, not for a second. It's not a joke. You know, listen, I know about ill advised jokes, okay? It's a, it's a topic I'm a expert on. You know, I know from an ill advisor, this is not, this is him trying to get $10 off.
Andrew Walsh
But what's funny is, see Greta Van Fleet. No, that, that's on me. That's on me.
Luke Burbank
See the second part of this statement, though, and this is where I do actually, I can understand his frustration. He says it was an ill advised joke and that also he was entitled to the discount. So really what's burning this guy up is that. And I actually think he might sort of have a point here.
Andrew Walsh
I think he does.
Luke Burbank
Morally, I do think honestly that eventually what the Supreme Court found, just to jump to the end of the story, is that it's not about the $10 off. It is that as a judge and on a level on a certain. This is where I said at the beginning of the show, you might not expect we're going where we're going because, Andrew, it sounds like you have some empathy for the guy. And I actually also agree with the Supreme Court ruling that he probably shouldn't be able to be a judge anymore. And the reason in my mind is because, like, if you had demonstrated that you will be cavalier about this thing, that's as silly as $10 off the parking and that you, you will literally create a forged document to get $10 off. It's very hard for me to believe that your rulings are impartial and that you are following the law as opposed to following some whim that you're having. You've just had a very obvious and boneheaded whim. And like, similarly, I mean, there's not a, I don't think that there's a rule for this, but I think that judge in Texas who yelled at the IT guy should not be able to be a judge anymore. Because, because in my mind, that judge has shown a temperament that is not in keeping with what we need for the people that have this level of responsibility. And I would say for this guy who's also, again, he's a practicing attorney. He's not disbarred. Like, this was like he was, this was him moonlighting. I think this was him on days he wasn't doing his attorney job, playing on the road.
Andrew Walsh
That's interesting context that I don't, because
Luke Burbank
I looked him up this morning.
Andrew Walsh
Okay, so he can still practice. He's got a lawyer. I didn't know that he practices as a lawyer. I thought his Only job was judging, and that is where I was coming from. So let me just go back 30 seconds before I had that realization or that information presented to me, because my thought about this was. And I want to be very clear. I mean, it is ironic because I'm the rule follower. And I really hate, like, literally, he said I was entitled to a discount. And I hate people who feel entitled to anything. Right.
Luke Burbank
See, that's the part I agree with.
Andrew Walsh
I do feel entitled to. But. No, but the thing is, like, I do think the rule. Rule is. Is dumb. I think if you're working there, yes, as a judge filling in for somebody else, you should have the same benefits and not. And again, $30 a day is just expensive. And again, I don't know how much this gig pays, but, like. And again, if he lives in Seattle, you know, I know that Seattle has high parking because we want to encourage people to maybe not drive so much. This is a.
Luke Burbank
This is a cars, Andrew.
Andrew Walsh
This is something that I truly believe in. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, if he is. If he could take the E Line to get there, I would love to see him with his gavel in his full robes on the Elon. I saw a guy I like the
Luke Burbank
front seat of this bus. I'm a judge.
Andrew Walsh
I actually did see somebody dressed up exactly like that on the E Line before. I don't think they were a real judge, though. No, I didn't. Anyway, I. I really think that this should be taken seriously. I think essentially forging another judge's signature, which is. Let's just go with the word forge there is incredibly serious. Yeah. And if you had other. If you had. Especially if there were any other offenses that were like this, that made me think, I can't trust you as a judge, I would be 100% on board with that. The thing is, I just think the punishment is a little bit too harsh. If this is a first offense and an isolated offense and he really did do something, he's like, I'm gonna get that. I don't think that it was a joke. I don't think it was an ill adv joke. And I also wonder how pleasant these exchanges really were with the person. If he was being a total a hole and we had footage of him, I think if they were more person, the way that other judge talked to that it person, I might feel totally different about this. But let's just assume the best case scenario here. He's like, I'm entitled to this. Like, come on. And he just gets the Stamp and he writes this little thing and he gives it to the person and he gets caught. Luke, I honestly would even think again, this is before I realized he can still practice as an attorney and it already has a practice going. But I thought if he's making his living as a judge who already has to travel from this court to that court, he doesn't have a regular job. Like, he's got to fill in, waiting for his big chance to get his cup of coffee in the big judge leagues or whatever. And then to say you can no longer do your job anymore. I would honestly say like, like give him a night in jail, but then let him go on judging or whatever. Like take it seriously. I'm not saying make whole Boo. Make him. Oh my God, like, honestly one of
Luke Burbank
those creative sentencing things.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, no, like, I think it should be taken very seriously because the word of judges and the, the judgment, well, literally the judgment of judges should be held to the highest possible standard. I don't want to make it sound like I'm just blowing this off, but when I thought that this was his only way of making a living and now he's got to start over and just figure out some other thing, I was like, that is too harsh for this particular isolated example. Assuming there's nothing else that is like kind of that people who are making this decision know about him. Like, I was like, maybe this guy just is a raging a hole, you know what I mean? And nobody wants to go to bat for him. But if he's, if his most of his work, if 90% of his work or 95% of his work is actually being a lawyer and he just kind of does this as moonlighting as you describe it, I think feel pretty different about it then.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I think, I think that he's going to be okay. He's got this law office practice. I'm at his website right now. By the way. He went to Humboldt State University in Northern California. That's the cradle of my, my early entrance into this world in Humboldt County. So I feel an affinity for him. And again, I, I, it's weird because I don't think that it's okay that, that he forged the doc. We'll keep using that term. But I actually also, this is how I go through the world being mad at that. I feel like the rule is somehow immoral in a way. And I think we've already talked about or we've already established this that like if you're, if you're working at the court professionally, you should be Able to, you should be able to park there for something that's not going to essentially erase half of the money that you're earning during your time there just for anybody. But, but, but yeah, I, I think he's, I think he's going to be all right. He graduated cum laude from Seattle University School of Law where he served on the editorial board of the Seattle University Law Review. I, I, I'm with you though, that I, I also think, my guess is that the interactions. The same guy who said it was a joke. Can I believe him on the interactions being cordial with the parking booth attendant? Because my sense is if they were, were, we wouldn't be reading this article. As I am often saying, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I feel like if he would have actually, I, I, what I'm wondering is if he wasn't a bit Kurt with the part like this parking person had
Andrew Walsh
it out for him, you know, that if I saw a video of him being a jerk and punching down, I'd have very different feelings about.
Luke Burbank
Absolutely.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And we don't, we don't have any, Listen, we're dealing with an attorney here. We don't want to get ourselves in trouble, so we don't have any insight into, into this. But I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm speculating here that if this would have in fact been a light hearted and fun little, kind of like cat and mouse game, little, hey, cut me a break, you know, kind of like a friendly deal, I don't think this would have made it all the way up the ladder. I think that, I have a feeling that this was extremely better Call Saul actually, Andrew. And that there was a, maybe there might have been some, some interactions that were, that left the parking attendant feeling less than grace.
Andrew Walsh
Great.
Luke Burbank
And it's so rare that in that position you're able to actually sort of exact justice on a person who's maybe a bit in a higher station than you.
Andrew Walsh
Now. I just sent you a link to an article. I'm wondering if maybe, if, if not this article, maybe even this photo of him because I'm looking up like he's been written up. He's been interviewed before. And this is theboss magazine.com did a profile on Springs. First he started a podcast. Podcast. And then he started a magazine. Obama is the editor. In fact. It's amazing.
Luke Burbank
That's right.
Andrew Walsh
But look at this. He's at home hugging his big dog. What kind of a dog is that?
Luke Burbank
A very, very, maybe an Australian shepherd of some.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, black and white dog. And it's like, I keep on seeing that he's like. I don't know, I'm just, like, reading all these little blurbs about him. I'm trying to, like, find some, like, paragraphs that make it sound like he is actually somebody who is. He can't give it. He's a judge. He can't give his opinion on things. But, like, maybe this guy is a big Swede, or maybe he was a jerk punching down. I don't know.
Luke Burbank
It's hard to know because I also have real questions about Boss magazine.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
As I'm. As I'm scrolling through it, and it's mostly Zergnet ads for Tirzepatide. His success is not marked by flashy verdicts or viral courtroom moments. Well, actually, it's gone pretty viral for the parking thing. It's built on something more enduring. Trust, time, and thoughtful strategies. David Ruzna is a man who listens first, speaks with care. This is allegedly an article about him, Andrew. But I have a feeling this might be more in the pay to play category of how we write about people. I mean, otherwise, this person is just really, really, really a fan of this guy's work. He's a man who listens first, speaks with care, and delivers with consistency. And for the clients who have worked with him across decades, he's deeply impacted their lives. Lives. Most of the difficult ethical situations I have seen arise when someone is tempted to deviate from the truth he shared. But when you stay honest, life is simpler. The law is complicated enough. Integrity should not be. End of article. Andrew.
Andrew Walsh
Well, Yikers, I have some clarity for me here. Or I can get some clarity, because I see that Jason and Tebbe, AKA Jason Ranch. Oh, sure. Our former colleague and general, just conservative voice of truth. Yeah, on Seattle. Exactly. He has an opinion on this that he talked about on his show that I'm reading now. And this makes it easy. I will just go with whatever opinion Jason doesn't express here.
Luke Burbank
I will take you on the matter.
Andrew Walsh
Okay. He's just going over the details of the story. Which we already did. All right. Whether Mr. Arzumna was entitled to an employee discount or not was not the concern. Oh, that's another judge weighing in. Come on, Jason. What's your opinion? So I can take the opposite. What's your opinion? For a man who couldn't find what mattered, that's the most fitting. I think that Jason is dancing on this guy's grave a little bit.
Luke Burbank
Okay, well, then we have to do everything in our power to get him reinstated. I mean, Andrew, I know you were in. You'd entered an tabby town down, but I mean, can we take a moment to appreciate that this art quote unquote article about him or whatever this puff piece is ends with him saying most of the difficult ethical situations I've seen arise when someone is tempted to deviate from the truth.
Andrew Walsh
I know that.
Luke Burbank
Shared. Yeah, when you stay honest, life is simpler. I mean, that's pretty much the opposite of what it appears happened here.
Andrew Walsh
Sir, is this your petar anybody? I have a petard here. Is this anybody's?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, that's mine.
Andrew Walsh
Here I go once again with the email every week. I hope that it's from a female. Oh man. It's not from a female.
Luke Burbank
Rightly. Andrew, it's that time of the week, man. Emails or vmails before we slide down that dinosaur on this Friday.
Andrew Walsh
That's great. Yes. I've been wanting to play this voicemail for you. I have voicemails that are so old that listeners probably forgot that they sent them in.
Luke Burbank
Well, it's a fun surprise.
Andrew Walsh
Exactly. So it's like Christmas in April. This was sent in by Kristen. You and I were talking a long time ago. And by the way, I don't mean to be disrespectful about the voicemail line. I do have a backlog and I'm going to be going through it more this weekend. But there are a few that I've had ready to play for a long time. And with me being out of the office for a while and everything, we kind of fell behind on this. But at some point in the past year or so, you and I were talking about my major fear of getting stuck on a roller coaster. There was a period of time in high school where I started going on roller coasters a lot. And some incredibly tall ones. Exactly. But then something just clicked in me again where I became terrified like I was when I was a child of roller coasters. And I don't think I'll ever go on one again. And the thing that terrifies me the most is when you're click clack clack, clacking up the. Up the first big hill and you look over and usually you see stairs, literal metal stairs. And there's a reason those stairs are there. And it's not just for repair people to go up and fix it. It's because sometimes these things get stuck on that part of the track and you have to get out and walk down. It's rare but it happens, and it makes headlines. And that is what inspired this.
Luke Burbank
I would say, Andrew, I think I'm comfortable saying, I think you would rather that. That the roller coaster just go off the rails and it's over for you.
Andrew Walsh
Just send me into Lake Erie.
Luke Burbank
Like that would actually be a better outcome for you then. Nope. The roller coaster is just stopped. And now you need to climb out of it and climb over to the
Andrew Walsh
stairs, because I'm not going. Like, they need to get the Jaws of life to get my hands off of the bar in front of me.
Luke Burbank
Like, I need to disassemble the entire roller coaster one piece at a time until eventually the section you're on is lowered gently down to ground level.
Andrew Walsh
I mean, it's just. It is one of the most. Most terrifying things I can think of. So, anyway, here's a voicemail from listener Kristen.
Kristen
Hi, guys. It's Kristen in Sydney. And I'm listening to you talk about roller coasters and roller coasters getting stuck and the barrels of getting off of them. And it reminded me of something that happened to my daughter earlier this year. So we went as a family to Disneyland Paris, and that was super fun. My daughter was 12, and so she's kind of just old enough that she could go as a single rider on the rides, which she and my husband kind of chose to do a few times because the lines are a lot shorter. And so they went on this coaster that it's Finding Nemo themed, but it is not for kids. It's a quite large roller coaster, and it's a dark ride. So it's in the dark, and I think you get sat on these, like, turtle shell things. So she was on this turtle with three other people that she didn't know because she was a single rider. And the roller coaster stopped. And so there she was on one of the slopes in the dark in a tortoise shell with three French speakers who didn't speak a word of English. And to her credit, she didn't panic. And then apparently, then they turned the lights on and she had to walk down the stairs by herself with the contingent of French friends around her. And full credit to this brave kid. She was, was not bothered. She just was like, that was so cool. I got to see what the inside looked like with the lights turned on.
Luke Burbank
We were invited to my next colonoscopy.
Kristen
Waiting for her to get off. But, yeah, the perils of being a roller coaster rider. It's an adventure.
Andrew Walsh
I wish I were brave. What does your colonoscopy have to do with that. Sorry, I missed the.
Luke Burbank
Well, they're in a tunnel. They're in a dark tunnel. And she was enjoying getting to see the inside of the dark tunnel.
Andrew Walsh
Yikes.
Luke Burbank
I think that helped, by the way.
Andrew Walsh
Hold on one second. Could you play the truck backing up sound for me please? And
Luke Burbank
I control this as she talks
Andrew Walsh
about her 12 year old daughter.
Luke Burbank
Why do you think that a colonoscopy is a sexual event? That's on you. That's. I think that's. To me, honestly, that's more telling. I was gonna say though, I think. I think that it probably helped a little bit that they were. Were inside some kind of a containment of, you know, they were in the dark. So like. Because if they were outside and there was nothing around them, that would be more. Don't you think. Do you think if you were in a roller coaster that went through, you know, parts of the thing were covered and parts weren't and you were inside a dark tunnel where there was some kind of thing surrounding you, would that make it a little better for you have to get out of the park?
Andrew Walsh
Absolutely. It depends on. And I'm not entirely clear what the setup here is. There was a. There was like sort of one of those indoor dark roller coasters at Cedar Point. I assume it's still there, but it's probably got a different name. I remember it kind of went through a couple of different iterations even during my lifetime of living in Ohio. And they're fun. They are less scary though because the thing that scares you is when you're out like towering over Lake Erie and looking down at cars that are just like ants now. Kristen said that they flipped all the lights on wherever this place was contained. So I would be interested in knowing like what that looked like. Like if you're actually like in a tunnel like that is sort of blocked off and you can't see it and you're just looking at the next step and you. Do you remember a time? I'm sure you do. You and I were in. We were visiting the American Public media headquarters where we worked at the time during one of our trips back to the Twin Cities. And we were in St. Paul, very near the station, I think, and there was some big. Was it a BR bridge? It wasn't a bridge over the river there, but it was something that was by the river, right on the water. And you and I had to go up or down these really long stairs, but there were those steel stairs that you. That has the grip. But you can see all the Way down. If you look down, you see all the way down.
Luke Burbank
And this was the Mississippi, right?
Andrew Walsh
This was the Mississippi. Right. But I'm trying to think is you and I didn't go up those stairs. We were somehow in some sort of a river wall walk thing. And also, there was some construction going on, so some stairs were blocked off and whatever. But you and I started, I believe, I think, descending these stairs, and we were just chatting. We're talking about work or something. And then I just shut up, and we kept moving. But I just realized I can't handle this right now. And it just gets on top of me sometimes. And a big part of that was looking down and being able to see through my feet all the way down to the ground.
Luke Burbank
Right.
Andrew Walsh
And I remember telling you, I'm like, I'm getting a little panicky now. Like, let's just kind of like, let's stop talking and just start moving quickly and let's hustle down. And you're like, okay, yeah. It's hard to explain when you're already in a situation and you're doing fine. And then suddenly the grips of terror take over. And that's how I felt. And so I do feel like if she had the ability to walk down, but it was more like a tunnel situation. You can only see a foot and a half to your right or left and up and down or whatever that would be way. I mean, that's the same thing as going in an elevator, right? Like, I'm not scared going in a regular elevator. Yeah, but if you put me in a glass. Yes. Like, I'm. I got really freaked out going up the glass elevator to the top of the Space Needle. The one time I did that, and I just put walls there, and I'm just like, whatever, man.
Luke Burbank
That's such a good point. Like, I don't know. Whatever. It's Friday. You got places to be, I've got lawns to mow. We don't need to get into all of this. But, like, it's interesting, the number of things in life that we participate in that are actually pretty dangerous, that we just don't clock as dangerous. Becca and I have, for some reason, been having this conversation a lot lately. Just about, like, maybe it's so weird to say because, like, the Tiger woods crash or something, but, like, you know, she and I have been talking about the fact that, like, we both drive a lot. She drives to Salem a lot to do stuff with her family. And I'm obviously driving from here down to Portland. Portland. And at no time when I get on the road am I. I don't feel a sense of fear when I'm driving on the freeway, even though it is arguably the most dangerous thing that I'm doing in my life at all times. And same thing with, like, an elevator. I mean, elevators are very safe, but, like, I get in an elevator and I don't take one second to worry about my safety. And yet, if I actually could see the inner workings or the outer workings of that thing, if I can could see where I am in this building 19 floors up, how high off the ground I am, there's some weird thing where there are certain things that our minds are able to disconnect from, and they just don't feel dangerous, even though they sort of are, or at least something, you know, that. That could be dangerous. And then there's the other stuff that, like, you know, you put me in the water and you tell me there was a great white shark in this water three days ago. Yeah, I'm terrified.
Andrew Walsh
But.
Luke Burbank
But I'm. But I get on the freeway and I'm going 80 miles an hour, and I don't know what everyone else around me. Actually, I was driving home last night from Livewire, and I was. Again, I don't want to get the fear on this because I got to drive a lot. I do not want to get into a headspace where I get nervous on the freeway. But I was driving home from Livewire, and It was about 10:30, 11:00 clock at night. And I was, of course, very much in my right mind. No alcohol or anything else in my system. But I started to have this thought of, like, what's up with Everybody else on i5 right now? And I think it was because this car passed me from behind really fast, like, came right up on. I was in the middle lane and came right up on me. And then just without even really breaking, just kind of zoomed into the right lane to go around me. And I just had this immediate thought, like, I don't know what's going on in that person's mind. Like, Tiger woods clipped a landscaping truck. It was a truck that was pulling a trailer with, like, lawn equipment in it. And he just came, according to the police, hauling up behind this truck and clipped the side of it. And fortunately for them, they were okay. He flipped his vehicle, but I don't know why there's something weird about that happening in the way it did from behind. In the light of day, when the person's just working, the person driving the truck, like, you just never know what's going on with anyone else. And, and like I, I'm almost like, I kind of wish I wouldn't let that into my head because now I'm starting to like. I mean also, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe this is what defensive driving is. I'm like maybe I'm a little more aware on the roads, but I don't know. That's a. Well, here's your place to take the show here at the very end of the week.
Andrew Walsh
I almost got, I got like two days ago. I was the closest I, I've ever been in to being in an actual accident on the road. But before I tell you about that, let me just tell you some advice that I've learned. If you are on the highway and you are having intrusive thoughts like that, the best thing you can do is close your eyes and just take a really big deep breath. Breath.
Luke Burbank
Four.
Andrew Walsh
Do some box breathing. Hold it for four.
Luke Burbank
Four out.
Andrew Walsh
Just close your eyes for about two minutes. No, but I, I, this luckily I was not on a highway or any place where this accident would have been life threatening. Yeah, would have been life bummering though. And I can tell you exactly where it was. I was on Northgate Avenue. Okay, okay. Heading. And that's the east west. So I'm heading west and it's right, it's kind of where that McDonald's is where you and I refere from time to time. But of course the McDonald's Nexus Hotel. I'm exactly, I'm coming up to the Nexus Hotel but I'm still a little bit further east of that. So it's where that Shell station is. I've just passed the highway entrance ramp and I'm heading home. So I'm just, so I'm not on the highway or anything. I'm just on. And then there's a car. There's you know, heavy traffic. It's like 4 o' clock in the afternoon. We had just brought our puppy home and Lucy was home with Genevieve and I had to go run out to the store something and so my mind is kind of on other things anyway, but this, I was totally not at fault here and I wasn't even being aggro. I will say I really don't like it when cars just sort of decide, oh, I'm just going to cut in front of this person and force me to break. And so yeah, one of my sins I will say as I still try to deal with some road rage issues that I had as a younger man is sometimes I will probably drive so defensively, like I'm a little bit. I don't leave very much room between me and the car in front of me because I know bunch of a hole behavior that happens and specifically on this stretch of road. But I was not even doing that. I wasn't thinking, like, I don't want anybody to cut me off here. I'm just driving. And we're coming up to some backed up traffic where there's a red light well in advance of us. And it's a two lane road. I'm in the right hand lane. There's a car in front of me in the left hand lane. And they're coming to a stop. I'm coming to a stop, you know, kind of right behind them and next to them. And this person clearly did not look to see if there was a car in the right hand lane. And he just. I slammed on my brakes so hard that it did that click, click, click, click, clicking thing. And I mean, if there was ice or any slickness, we would have hit. I had to slam on my brake so hard because he just. Just decided to take a left, change lanes, not just change lanes, take a left in front of me and keep going into the gas station. Basically, I was in the lane that could have turned right into the gas station. Legally. This person just made a last minute decision that they wanted to get g and just cut.
Luke Burbank
He went from the left lane to the right lane. He went.
Andrew Walsh
He went from the left lane, across the right lane into the parking lot in front of me so that I just slam on my brakes so hard and I. And my horn. And then, like, he just pulls into the gas station. And I just like, slowed down and gave him the biggest middle finger I could. I only have, like, my fingers. Are you a pretty big band? Yeah.
Luke Burbank
No, they're big.
Andrew Walsh
I was just like, luke, I got to be honest with you. This is where. And I'm glad I didn't do this, but there are demons inside me. You know, I've never gotten into, like a real physical fight before, but I had to fight every instinct not to pull into that gas station because he pulled into the gas station and then drove all the way in front. And then I saw him kind of looking at me, but not even looking like he had done anything wrong. And I. And I don't know what I would have done, Luke. Like, I'm not a fighter. But there was this moment where all of my instinct was, well, you follow that guy. I mean, you take care of this. And I did.
Luke Burbank
It's not even mental. It's not mental. It's physical.
Andrew Walsh
Yes.
Luke Burbank
Your body is feeling this feeling so strongly, so mad.
Andrew Walsh
And I was so. And it was just like I had to. I mean I was all, I mean we. If I had not slammed on the brakes so hard that they clicked on me, we would have been in an accident. And while I had a, you know, like a 30 minute year old puppy as far as I was concerned back at home, you know what I mean? And I'm actually very glad that they. That is where I was heading home. Because I was able to like pretty. I was able to compose myself very, very quickly too. I was just like, don't. What are you. What are you doing? Like that. I'm glad that bad thing didn't happen. And now you're going home to Genevieve and Lucy and with the new collar that I just picked up, you know, like everything's fine. But there was just, I mean, the split second of pure unadulterated rage. And maybe that would have been the moment where I would have popeyed him to the moon. As you like to.
Luke Burbank
I weep for whoever receives your first and last last punch of your adult life.
Andrew Walsh
I just couldn't believe it. But you know what's fun?
Luke Burbank
Well, I'm really glad that you were able to act quickly and obviously avoid the accident. I'm glad you didn't follow the guy into the parking lot but. And again, I know we do have to get out of here but like it's really interesting what it is that ticks me off on the road versus maybe what it is that ticks you off because. So I know I just said that. When I was driving home from Livewire last night, I got a little sketched out by a car driving kind of erratically laid it at night while driving down there. So it's, you know, it's 3:30 in the afternoon or something. I had the. I wasn't mad at the guy who kind of erratically came up behind me and went around me. I was just more like I should really be aware of who's out here and what their state of mind is. The person I was mad at was as I was driving down to do the show and you know, it's i5. I don't know how many lanes it is, four lanes or something. And I don't usually hang out. I don't hang out on the right lane to slow people down at all. I generally drive in the middle lane. But then if the person in the middle Lane is being slow. I get into the right lane long enough to pass them. Then I get back over in the middle lane. And there was something that happened where I was. I had gotten into the right lane, but there was a car in front of me that was going not. You know, they were probably doing the speed limit, but I couldn't. Basically what happened was somehow I. I was just trying to go around this car in the middle lane, but I was delayed a little, little bit by the car that was in the far. I'm sorry, left lane. I've probably been screwing up the lanes here. But anyway, all I was doing was driving pretty normally. I wasn't doing that thing where I'm hanging out in the left lane, just like, you know, doing the speed limit in the left lane, slowing everybody down. I don't do that. But somehow in all of this, I was just driving based on what the traffic would allow me to do. And then this. A woman in, like, a Subaru or something, she does the move where. So I am. Imagine this. I'm in the middle lane. The car in front of me is going slowly. So now I'm going over to the left lane. I'm trying to go around. And as I get around the car in the center lane and I get back into. I'm starting to get back in the center lane. This Subaru has now zoomed up the right lane. And she's looking at me and doing a kind of like, I can't believe this guy to me, like, what in this, like. I think she must have been behind me at some point and felt like I was somehow. I had done some move that made her annoyed with me, and she gave me this, like, just hands up, like, what is wrong with you? And when I tell you, Andrew, that I was very tempted to lie, like, lay on the horn or follow her or flip her off, none of which I did.
Andrew Walsh
You could have borrowed my hands.
Luke Burbank
If. If my hands were as big as yours, I would do more flipping off. You're leaving money on the table. You have a middle finger that could be seen from space. In fact, Artemis 2 reported it. One is. It's one of the few things they could see without instrumentation from orbit. But, like, it's funny because somebody pulling a bonehead move where they cross in front of me and almost cause an accident. Accident, I mean, that would get my adrenaline going. I don't think my. I don't think my reaction would be anger. But if someone is judging me, if someone is giving me an indication that they are saying I did something wrong. I'm bad at driving. I'm a. That's where that gets animated in me. That's what it's like. That's the thing that kills me. I told you that the time that I followed that guy for all those miles in Seattle because he had said that to me. He had given me a look because he thought I ran a red light on purpose.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I remember that. I was thinking about that.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I had run the red light. I had run the red light, but only because in my defense, if I can quote the attorney David Rusna, for a minute, I felt like the. The. It was an immoral stoplight.
Andrew Walsh
It.
Luke Burbank
You could not tell who the red light pertained to. I did not mean to go through the red light. It was. I was very chagrin. But there was no other traffic around. I get to the next light, and the guy yells at me, get off your phone. And I had not been on my phone. And that. That moment of him finding me wanting in some way or lacking or whatever, that's the one that really.
Andrew Walsh
You don't like me judged. I think that I don't like being.
Luke Burbank
I mean, nobody likes it, but. But that's the one that makes my brain go into a totally irrational mode.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
Whereas if people are just doing boneheaded driving for some reason, that doesn't trigger me as much.
Andrew Walsh
But yeah.
Luke Burbank
Anyway.
Andrew Walsh
Well, all right.
Luke Burbank
Here's to hoping that our road rage.
Andrew Walsh
Whoa.
Luke Burbank
Are minimal. I'.
Andrew Walsh
It. I'm just like, we're done here. We're done here. No, I'm sorry. I hit the wrong thing. What if from now on, like, middle of the show, you're just in the middle of a sentence. I'm like, you know what? Power out. I'm out of here.
Luke Burbank
Andrew, you have me confused with someone who wants to do more show. I absolutely deputize you to call this thing whatever you see fit.
Andrew Walsh
I'm getting text messages from upset upstairs saying that I. My services are required. So we do got to get out of here. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
All right, man. Well, good luck this weekend.
Andrew Walsh
Thank you.
Luke Burbank
With Lucy.
Andrew Walsh
You know what? I haven't told you two things. I'll update you on Monday. Number one, Bingo and Lucy have met. It's going pretty well.
Luke Burbank
I've seen photos.
Andrew Walsh
Number two, a big part of this thing that I have not told you is Genevieve's leaving next weekend. So for the first time, I'm going to be an only parent with a dog, which has got gonna be like
Luke Burbank
Michael Keaton and Mr.
Andrew Walsh
Mom.
Luke Burbank
You're gonna be in a. Like, a public restroom with Lucy holding her up. Because somehow I feel like that was the COVID of the VHS tape.
Andrew Walsh
Like, you're right.
Luke Burbank
Of Mr. Mom. Anyway. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. That's gonna do it for this episode, and it's gonna bring us to the end of our broadcast week. But we will be back here Monday with more imaginary radio, so please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great weekend, everybody. Stay safe out on the roads and on the roller coasters. Go, Mariners. And please remember, no Mountaintop too tall.
Andrew Walsh
And good luck to all. Power out.
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
This Friday edition of TBTL sees Luke and Andrew digging deep into the joys and trials of raising a new puppy (Lucy), the saga of a Seattle judge defrocked over a parking scam, and the evolving pains of online information in the IMDb era. They balance signature tangents—ranging from Mariners baseball and pooping puppies to reminiscences of early radio classes—with listener correspondence on roller-coaster trauma and tales of near-road-rage. At its core, this episode’s theme revolves around managing the messiness of everyday life (literal and figurative), finding humor in the mundane, and the comfort of growing older alongside the TBTL community.
00:00–01:21
01:21–03:11
03:13–12:25
12:25–15:25
12:54–18:04
22:59–37:33
38:11–59:43
59:45–64:01
67:49–79:32
Power out!